Monday

We are off to another great week in second grade!

Today the students met our Pre Student Teacher. She will be with us Wednesday and Friday of this week. She will then return in October every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through December and will teach 6 social studies and language arts lessons.

Our caterpillars doubled in size over the weekend! The students had so much fun observing them today.

In math, we reviewed telling time to the hour, half hour, and quarter hour. We also practiced single digit addition while playing addition top it.

In reading, students read to self, worked on spelling, and practiced High Frequency Words. We continue to build our reading stamina and are very close to adding another center.

We will continue to revisit our classroom rules and how each should look, sound and feel. Please talk about rules and consequences at home with your child. We have begun a kindness program at Moreland. If students are "caught" doing something nice and over the top in the classroom, at lunch, anywhere in the school, they can get a "Maestro Note". The student that receives the Maestro Note will write their name on it, put it in the classroom bucket and will be entered in a weekly drawing. 

I hope you have a wonderful week. Just a reminder-MAP Reading test is on Thursday as well as our field trip to the Dodge Nature Center. Please contact me if you are interested in attending.

Thanks!

Great Song

I am hoping to teach this song to the kids. Click the link: *****What I Am by Will.i.am*****

Viktor the Viking Visits

This is going to be a very short post since it is Friday. Today, we began our Artist in Residency with Ballare Teatro. The students used their bodies in dancing and moving to name the parts of insects and be a caterpillar egg and caterpillar. The students learned that caterpillars eat their way out of the egg and molt like snakes as they grow. Here is a brief video of the caterpillars coming out of the egg.

Today, Viktor the Viking came to Moreland and talked to the students about Fuel Up to Play 60. The kids learned all about exercise and eating healthy. One of our friends got picked to answer a trivia question about the food groups. He successfully named all of them!!!

Even I was sucked in to the action and got to dance with Viktor himself. 

Sorry for such a brief post. I hope you all have a wonderful and restful weekend!! See you Monday!

***if the videos don't work, I will try again on Monday***

Exciting Things Are Happening

Sorry for not posting last night! In the future, just a heads-up, there may be days that I do not post due to having meetings or after school programs that I teach. I will do my best to post as often as possible.

Today we took our MAP Math test. At conferences, students will be given a goal to meet by the end of the year.  The hope and dream that I set for the class is that all students meet their personal MAP goals (both reading and math). We did a lot of reading to self today, as our MAP Test took up our entire reading block.

We got our caterpillars today!!!!!! Students got to observe their caterpillars and name them. We are so excited to watch them transform and become butterflies. Tomorrow, a teaching artist from Ballare Teatro will be coming into our classroom and will teach us through dance and movement the life cycle of butterflies. She will be coming three times total and the third time, we will perform in front of a kindergarten or first grade class.

Today we dissected our rules and made Y charts to help us remember what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like to follow each rule. 

The students  signed hands to accept the rules we set.

Yesterday, we made a Venn Diagram to help guide a discussion about the difference between poems and stories. The students did a great job and noticed a lot of things!

Kindness of the day:

Yesterday, Alfredo and Lucas worked together to sharpen a pencil! Today, Emilio helped Desmond get his lunch since he is on crutches L

Terrific Tuesday

Not only is it another warm and beautiful day outside but it was also a beautiful day full of learning in the classroom! We also worked up a sweat in our room dancing and playing games that enhanced our math and social skills.

Today in reading, student practiced their spelling words, rhyming, and Read to Self stamina. We are up to 10 minutes reading by ourselves without any noises or interruptions. I am hoping that by the end of next week or the week after that we can begin Listen to Reading.

In writing, students got to finish their stories from yesterday, illustrate pictures, or begin a new story. We then opened the Author’s Chair for students to share their work.

In math, we played the game “number squeeze” with a partner and practiced counting money. This is a skill that the math pre-test showed that we needed to work on more.

We read the story Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse today and discussed logical consequences. 

1. Loss of Privilege (something is taken away)

2. Take a Break

3. You break it, you fix it (includes apologies)

We also did our SWAT test today. Intervention teachers (title 1, basic skills, esl, etc) took students and listened to them read a passage and do a fluency check. These scores as well as MAP scores will be discussed at conferences.

Take Time To Be Kind (TTTBK) News of the day: Alex taught Myles to tie his shoes!!!!

My Goal for the students:

Happy Monday!

 

Good afternoon,

Today we read the story No David and talked about how we have rules at home and at school. We reviewed the rules we created last year in first grade and decided to change some of them up. Tomorrow, students will review our new rules and sign their name saying that they understand the rules and will do their best to follow them. We will also discuss logical consequences tomorrow if they do not follow the rules.

   OUR RULES:

Today, students had the opportunity to explore their math journals. We did lesson 1.1 which was filling in numbers on a number line. The number lines started out simple and ended in the thousands.

In Social Studies, we rad the poem “Lets Go Explore!” and learned about the difference between rural and urban communities. We will continue to discuss examples of different communities this week.

In reading, we read the book How I Spent My Summer Vacation. We picked out the characters and setting in the story and began to write our own stories with characters and setting. Students also used their spelling activity books today. In the books there are different questions/activities that the students complete using the spelling words this week. We also practiced building our Read to Self Stamina. I have been pulling students aside during individual work time to assess sight word reading.

Tomorrow students will be pulled out of the room for SWAT Testing. This test will help the intervention team decide who will be pulled during intervention time for extra reading help. MAP testing also begins on Thursday. Please make sure your child gets a lot of rest and eats a good breakfast!

Have a wonderful rest of the day! It is BEAUTIFUL!!!

Hopes and Dreams: (Clouds=Student Goals, Flowers=Parent Goals/Wishes for their child)

                                           

Happy Friday!

Today students took home their Friday Folders. Folders are to be emptied and returned the next school day. Inside today’s folders are flowers for parents/guard to write a hope, dream, or wish for their child to accomplish this year. The hope, wish or dream will be written on the petals for the flower and a picture of the student will go in the center. These will be posted under the students hopes & dream clouds that they made earlier this week.

Today we also practiced filling out I Care Plans. We got our acting hats on and pretended that we just pushed someone in line. We pretended to all have to take a break and fill out an I Care Plan:

A lot of teachers and parents have come to me complimenting the students’ behavior and asking if the looping has helped. My answer is “YES!” Looping so far has been an amazing experience and the students seem confident and ready to learn. We have saved SO much time by not having to introduce all of the routines. Instead, the students can remind each other what, when and how to do things. We do still practice, but we don’t need to practice and start over as much as the first year.

It has been a great first week of school and I cannot wait for the rest of the year!